The Guardian reveals FTX trustees, in charge after the CEO’s downfall, allege payments were made with looted funds

Multiple events hosted at a historic former hotel in Berkeley, California, have brought together people from intellectual movements popular at the highest levels in Silicon Valley while platforming prominent people linked to scientific racism, the Guardian reveals.

But because of alleged financial ties between the non-profit that owns the building – Lightcone Infrastructure (Lightcone) – and jailed crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, the administrators of FTX, Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto exchange, are demanding the return of almost $5m that new court filings allege were used to bankroll the purchase of the property.

The normalisation of ideas once confined to the fringes is cause for concern, not complacency

Far right? Hard right? Radical right? Or just plain right? The success in the recent EU elections of parties such as Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, or RN, (the rebadged Front National), and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), has generated a debate about whether the label “far right” should be retired because, as Spectator editor Fraser Nelson argues, many parties that carry that moniker are “now mainstream in a way that wasn’t the case 15 years ago”.

Such parties are, for Nelson, better categorised as “new right”. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, whose party the Brothers of Italy is descended from a fascist organisation, has shown in practice that “she is centre-right, not radical”. It is “nonsense”, Nelson insists, “to call Meloni’s party ‘post-fascist’ ” or to suggest that the disparate “new right” parties all belong to a single “ ‘far-right’ or radical-right lump”.

The news anchor, who will present the programme with Laura Kuenssberg, has spoken on Desert Island Discs about the insults and threats he has experienced as a broadcaster

Clive Myrie has detailed the racism he has experienced during his broadcasting career, as he prepares to present the BBC’s general election night programme.

Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, broadcast on Sunday, the 59-year-old listed some of the insults and threats he has endured, including being sent faeces and pictures of gorillas in the post.

Royal Exchange, Manchester
Jill Halfpenny and Rowan Robinson star in a revival of the 1958 play, staged near its setting of Salford

Gather a group of writers together and they will soon be complaining about the question producers inevitably pose about their projects: “Why now?” It’s a fair question, and one that needs to be posed when reviving a play – such as Shelagh Delaney ’s defining work A Taste of Honey, first staged in 1958.

On its premiere, the play was a sensation . It now makes its way back to the stage at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, not far from where it is set, in Delaney’s home town of Salford. Modern audiences are warned of outdated language and attitudes to race and homosexuality, but when you have a character saying she will “drown it” when she discovers that her white daughter will be having a black baby, there needs to be a serious interrogation of the necessity of the play for today.

The equalities minister knows the Tory anti-woke sweet spot. As for those who benefit from greater diversity, oh well …

The lady is for turning. And contradicting too. The lady is Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, minister for women and equalities, and now the Conservative party’s great Black hope. Which must come in handy as hope (with a dash of diversity-drenched “anti-wokeness”) appears to be the Tories’ only strategy to be remotely competitive at the next election. Or the one after that.

Badenoch, the would-be PM, is on manoeuvres. Within a matter of days of assailing her own anti-liberal brand and shocking practically everyone by labelling Frank Hester’s obviously racist comments about Diane Abbott as racist, Badenoch quickly returned to form by dismissing the same comments as “ trivia ”.

Shooting of 15-year-old ‘beautiful soul’ in California revives scrutiny on law enforcement abuse of youth with disabilities

When Ryan Gainer was diagnosed with autism as a toddler, he was nonverbal, and his family all learned sign language to communicate with him. But after the southern California boy learned how to speak at around age four, he was a “ball of energy” who never stopped talking, his older sister Rachel said.

He loved saying “hi” to neighbors and strangers alike, and as a young teen was known as the student who greeted everyone with a “good morning” and a smile.

Nearly 80% of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the US say abortion should be legal in all or most cases

A new poll shows that Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the US are highly supportive of legal abortion, even in situations in which the pregnant person wants an abortion for any reason.

With abortion rights poised to be one of the major issues in the 2024 election, the poll from AAPI Data and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly 80% of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. They’re also supportive of federal government action to preserve abortion rights: three-quarters say Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortions nationwide.

Sitter for William Lindsay Windus’s painting is rumoured to have stowed away on ship, possibly to escape slavery in US

The subject of the painting gazes at the viewer, alone and barefoot in loose and torn clothing. Known only as The Black Boy, his identity has been a mystery for nearly 200 years.

A museum is appealing for information about the mysterious sitter, who is rumoured to have stowed away on a ship to Liverpool – possibly to escape slavery in America – after research about the artist, William Lindsay Windus, and X-rays of the painting revealed potential clues to the boy’s identity.

Bill signed by governor Kay Ivey affects public schools, universities and state agencies, and was lambasted by civil rights advocates

Alabama governor Kay Ivey has signed a bill into law in effect banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs across public schools, universities and state agencies, the latest move in a wave of a Republican-led legislation that aims to restrict diversity efforts across the country.

The law, known as SB129, imposes restrictions around what it calls eight “divisive concepts”, including assigning “fault, blame or bias” to any race, religion, gender or color, or discussions of whether “slavery and racism are aligned with the founding principles of the United States”. It authorizes state agencies to “discipline or terminate employees or contractors who violate this act”.